Review: Brew Cafe – take home ready meals

Season’s Eatings was lucky enough to have the opportunity to eat at Brew Cafe in Wandsworth, and it was a delight to find that a selection of the dishes on their menu were available to buy as ready meals. These ready meals are freshly prepared, par-cooked and priced at half the cost of the normal menu prices.

We took home the Brew Moo (Ox cheek) Stew with Giant Cous Cous and their Lasagne to try.

Brew Moo Stew

The Brew Moo Stew is paired with the Giant Cous Cous and more-than-comfortably servesone. The instructions are very easy to follow and involve just a few minutes of warming through on a hob. Although the stew itself doesn’t look that appetising in the packet, rest assured that this is absolutely delicious in flavour and definitely something we wished there had been more of. A few extra minutes of effort will go far to chop and steam some veg (carrots, peas or beans) to add colour and one of your five-a-day.

The Giant Cous Cous was equally as easy to cook, with a dash of water to ensure the dish was fully rehydrated. This being giant cous cous was a novelty and added to the feeling of an extra special meal. We at Season’s Eatings were equally impressed at the literature that accompanies the dishes i.e. the individual poems – a quirky charm that set a relaxing fun tone, whilst we spent the 5 – 10 minutes readying dinner.

Lasagne

Lasagne is the epitome of home cooking and whilst a shop bought one could never compete the your own family recipe, this came a pretty close runner up. Brew’s quality ingredients (including beef chuck steak mince) in the ready meals reflect the quality of their dishes in house.

It took a little longer than the recipe instructions for the lasagne to become completely golden brown (approximately 45 minutes in total), but the extra few minutes were worth it. The lasagne was soft, oozing and full of flavour. We would definitely recommend this take-away, which happily serves two people.

Overall we were very impressed with the quality of food both in and out of the restaurant and would happily recommend this ambitious, expanding restaurant chain.